The Gargoyle | 
 enlarge | Author: Andrew Davidson
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  131 reviews
Sales Rank: 2882
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0385524943
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780385524940
ASIN: 0385524943
Publication Date: August 5, 2008
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Amazon.com Review
Product Description
An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time.
The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide?for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul.
A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life?and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne's care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete?and her time on earth will be finished.
Already an international literary sensation, The Gargoyle is an Inferno for our time. It will have you believing in the impossible.
Andrew Davidson Talks About Becoming a Writer
 Some of what follows is true.
When I was about seven, I had a turtle named Stripe. I decided, because I liked my turtle and Jacques Cousteau, that I wanted to be a marine biologist. This ambition lasted until I was ten years old, when I spent a year gazing into the abyss, hoping that the abyss would not gaze back at me. At eleven, I longed for a master to teach me the secrets of the ninja, but the teacher did not appear; this probably means that as a student I was not ready. As I entered my teens, I set my heart upon becoming a professional hockey player. On weekend nights, the final game at the local arena ended around 10 p.m. but the icemaker was unable to leave the building until about midnight, as he had to clean the dressing rooms and do maintenance. I bribed him with presents of Aqua Velva aftershave to let me play alone on the rink until he headed home. Despite my devotion, I never developed the skills to make it off the small-town rink and into the big leagues. My dream shattered, at sixteen I started to spend more time writing. I began by changing the lyrics to Doors songs. I rewrote "Break On Through" so that it became "Live to Die": "Soldier in the forest / dodging bullets thick / only took one / to make him cry / All of us just live to die." Clearly, writing was my future.
I soon realized that, since I still had no authorial voice of my own, I should at least imitate better poets than Jim Morrison. Soon I was word-raping Leonard Cohen, e.e. cummings, Sylvia Plath, William Blake, and John Milton. After writing much abusively derivative poetry, I moved onto stage plays written in a mockery of the style of Tennessee Williams, which also didn’t work out so well. Next, I tried to put baby in a corner, until it was explained to me that nobody puts baby in a corner. Following this, I produced short stories that would have been much better if they were much shorter. Then, screenplays that even Alan Smithee wouldn’t direct.
Somewhere along the way, I managed to get a degree in English Literature; this was strange, as I thought I was studying cardiology. Undaunted, off to Vancouver Film School I went, but naturally not to study film. Instead, I took the new media course, because there was this thing called the internet that was just taking off. I also spent a fair amount of time using digital editing software for video and audio. An example project: I slowed down the final movement to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, looped it backwards, put in a heavy drumbeat, and end up with a funeral dirge. "Ode to Joy"? I think not. "Ode to Bleakness" is more like it; I was very deep, and showed it by destroying joy.
After this course finished, I had tens of thousands of dollars of student debt, and could no longer avoid getting a job. I soon discovered, in no uncertain terms, that work is no fun. I stuck it out for as long as I could, which was way less than a lifetime. As my thirtieth birthday approached, I became incredibly aware that I had never lived abroad, so I moved to Japan.
I had no idea if I would like Japan, but I vowed to stick it out for a year. I did, and then another year, and another, and another, and another. In the beginning, I worked as a kind of substitute teacher of English, covering stints in classrooms that needed a temporary instructor. I lived in fifteen different cities during my first two years, traveling from the northern island of Hokkaido all the way down to the southern island of Okinawa. It was a great introduction to the country, but eventually the constant relocation became too much. I got a job in a Tokyo office, writing English lessons for Japanese learners on the internet. I lived in the big city for three years, and loved it: hooray for sushi, hooray for sumo, and hooray for cartoon mascots.
While in Japan, I entertained myself by writing and, having already mangled poetry, short stories, stage plays and screenplays, I thought it was time to give a novel a shot. A strange thing happened: I found that I don’t write like other people when it comes to novels?or at least, none of which I know. It’s true that I’ve read comparisons of my novel to a number of other books?The Name of the Rose, The English Patient, The Shadow of the Wind?but I haven’t read any of them. (To my great shame, really, and I suppose I should. Since they are my supposed influences, I should become familiar with them. I’ll appear more intelligent in interviews.)
I liked writing The Gargoyle, and I think I’ll write another novel. If I can, I’ll make up new characters and a new plot. That’s my plan.
Product Description
An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time.
On a burn ward, a man lies between living and dying, so disfigured that no one from his past life would even recognize him. His only comfort comes from imagining various inventive ways to end his misery. Then a woman named Marianne Engel walks into his hospital room, a wild-haired, schizophrenic sculptress on the lam from the psych ward upstairs, who insists that she knows him – that she has known him, in fact, for seven hundred years. She remembers vividly when they met, in another hospital ward at a convent in medieval Germany, when she was a nun and he was a wounded mercenary left to die. If he has forgotten this, he is not to worry: she will prove it to him.
And so Marianne Engel begins to tell him their story, carving away his disbelief and slowly drawing him into the orbit and power of a word he'd never uttered: love.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 126 more reviews...
 Amazingly Good Book!!! October 9, 2008
This book was amazing: the stories within the story, the characters and the way Andrew Davidson describes everything was beautiful. You can tell he is going to be a very successful writer, especially since this is his very first book! I can't wait to read book 2, 3, 4.....etc!
Entrancing book...I could not put it down October 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am not a student of English or history, so I can't say if this book qualifies as a "great novel." I can say, however, that I read this book over the course of a few days, making sure to read a few pages, paragraphs, or sentences whenever I got the chance. I put aside the other fiction book that I was reading and made sure to finish "The Gargoyle" as soon as I could.
I will not recap the novel (as it has been done before, and better than I could ever hope to do), but I will simply say that it was engrossing and un-put-downable (if that could ever be a real word).
A very intriguing and compelling book October 8, 2008
This book fits into a few different genres. It is, in part, a historical fiction novel. In part, it is a love story. And finally, it is also a bit of a mystery. I think all three parts work well together, complementing not overshaddowing each other.
The book chapters jump back and forth from the present to one of many pasts. It also moves around different parts of the world, including Japan, Iceland, Italy, and Germany. Though some do not like this style, I think it really helps to keep the reader interested from the variety.
The writing is good, though sometimes it seems that the author plays a bit too fast and loose with grammar rules. But, still, it does not really detract from the overall enjoyment of his word choice, for example.
In terms of the mystery part of the book, there does seem to be an element of The Da Vinci Code type of thing in the book, especially as there is some sense of the religious in the entire story.
While the novel is thoroughly engaging, it has the issue that many books do: the end cannot live up to the rest of it. That is a problem with The Gargoyle as well. Davidson could, perhaps, have done more to flesh out the reveal at the end, making the last chapters more substantial. For this, I would probably give it a 4.5 if I could. Still, the book is so interesting to read and there is enough of a resolution at the end that it deserves high marks. But it is certainly not for those who need all strings tied up at the end.
 Gargoyle of a book October 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I will begin by saying that perhaps this book should have been exactly my cup of tea. A love story between a disillusioned, cynical burn victim (and victim, arguably, of his own excesses) and a schizophrenic sculptress, who've loved each other before, time and again? I mean, I should have swallowed this book overnight! Instead...
God, this was painful to read. I couldn't believe just how overwritten this novel was. I couldn't sympathize with either of the characters, though I've tried to find something to like about them. It's not the yuck factor, either - I've tolerated much more gross descriptions than the total body burn and other atrocities that are inflicted on the protagonist of The Gargoyle. Rather, it's the quality of writing itself, which seemed to delight in breathless descriptions of atrocities (take, for one example, the suicide plan that the protagonist hatches prior to deciding to give love - or insanity - a chance) that put me off to the point where I could barely finish the book. Overindulgent character torture is definitely not my cup of tea. So, basically, thanks, but no thanks.
A Novel Menagerie's Book Review: The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson October 1, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
As the last of my Costco book table purchases, I read The Gargoyle at my daughter Dee-Dee's suggestion. As I mentioned in a previous post, my daughter Colie picked out Water for Elephants, because I collect elephants, and I purchased it from Costco. As Dee-Dee is one of the "always competing" twins, she picked out The Gargoyle and told me that she thought I would like it because I liked Season of the Witch. OK... so, I bought them both and have already read and reviewed Water for Elephants. Picture now, Dee-Dee bugging me... "Mom, when are you going to read the book that I picked out for you?"
"Next, babe, next... I promise."
First, let's just say that I thought this book was VERYgood! I'm a bit surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did. The book is very different than the types of books that I typically gravitate towards. Just goes to show that "you can't judge a book by it's cover!" Oh, and Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants , quotes on the back of the book cover:
"I was blown away by Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle. It reminded me of Life of Pi, with its unanswered (and unanswerable) contradictions. A hypnotic, horrifying, astonishing novel that manages, against all odds, to be redemptive."
The Review:
Author: Andrew Davidson
Book Website: [...]
Publisher: DoubleDay
ISBN: 978-0-385-52494-0
Type: Fiction
This novel is a bit difficult to describe, in terms of a story-line... at least, for me. This novel has a main story, which is the tale of the narrator (I don't think we ever get his name). He was a "porno" star, drug addict, very dark and obviously unhappy man. One night, high on drugs, he's driving a windy road and suffers a haleucination of a "flight of arrows" coming towards him. To avoid the arrows, he crashes off of the road and heads down a ravine. The car catches fire and he nearly dies.... but, the car eventually falls into a creek and he is saved by the water.
He undergoes extensive treatment in a burn-ward of a hospital. There, we meet several of his doctors and nurses, who become an integral part of the main story line. My favorite of the group is Sayuri, his Japanese physical therapist. During his very long and painful stay, he meets Marianne Engel, a patient from the "psych" ward. He believes her to be schizophrenic or bi-polar, after concluding that she is not an actress nor a "porno stalker." She is an interesting creature, this Marianne Engel... covered in tattoos, her backside is depicted on the cover of the book. She is eccentric and beautiful... and mysterious and crazy. Nevertheless, the reader grows to love her... as does the narrator.
Mariane Engel visits the narrator throughout his recovery and helps to nurse him back to health in more ways than one. In this duration, she tells him stories. These "side-stories" in the book were, by far, my most favorite part of the novel. They were all great, but I loved Sei's story (see video below) the best! The Viking one, not too shabby!
The narrator makes his way out of the hospital and moves in with Marianne Engel, who claims to have been alive since the 1300's. Apparently, she was given thousands of hearts by God, and it wasn't until she'd given all of them away that she could return to heaven. The last of the hearts would belong to her true love and she must give it to him and he must release it back to her. Marianne is a stone-carver and makes her living carving gargoyles and the like. Of course, she has crazy amounts of cash money and is able to take on the financial burden of caring for him. In her care-taking of him, she continues to tell him about those "side stories," now which include the story of their love in a past life.
I'd rather not give the ending away by continuing my rendition of the story-line. But, the narrator has to overcome many obstacles to find his way to true happiness. You see, while he was in the hospital, the only dream he had was to kill himself as soon as he was released. As horrible as his life was before the accident, he now viewed himself as a monster and less than a man (he lost his "P" in the accident). What the narrator learned was that, while his physical appearance and ability was completely shot, he actually became alive and happy for the first time in his life after the accident. All that he had before was physical beauty... but not an ounce of joy. Now, not an ounce of physical beauty, but a heart that was full.
Sei's Story:
[...]
The author and DoubleDay have a wonderful site with many resources that tie to the novel. I might spend some more time there reading up on the historical data beneath this novel. It is obvious that Davidson spent an incredible amount of time in the research phases of this debut novel. On the site, there are questions for book clubs/readers:
For Discussion: Throughout each liaison, how do the novel's lovers honor their fate? They realize that they are dying in the name of true love.
For Discussion: The Gargoyle begins with arguably one of the most stunning opening scenes in contemporary literature. How was the author able to make horrifying details alluring? What was your initial reaction to these images? I was very visually connected to the author's description of the crash and the fire. For me, it was totally engrossing and I couldn't put the book down. Although, I understand from other reviewers that they were repulsed by the opening.
There is much, much more that I can write about this novel... however, the reader's journey in this book is such a personal one that I find it best to end the review here. God, heaven, hell, the devil, love, life, death, faith, and the lack thereof, are all major concepts in this work. Therefore, it is within the mind of the reader that this book breathes life into... it's a journey for you to take on your own.
My favorite quotes from the novel:
"No, it's the opposite. I'm a vessel that water is poured into and splashes out of. It's a circle, a flowing circle between God and the gargoyles and me, because that is what God is-a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."
"Skin is the dividing line between people, where you end and others begin. But in sex, all that changes. If skin is a fence that divides people, sex is the gate that opens your body to the other person."
"Some day soon," Lance said, "you'll walk out of here and have to decide how you're going to live the rest of your lives. Will you be defined by what other people see, or by the essence of your soul?"
"Any man who believes he can describe love," I answered, "understands nothing about it."
On the Sher's "Out of Ten" Scale (ten being the best), I'd give this book an 8.75-9! The only trouble I had in the book was the journey with getting the serpent out...
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